“Come to school with me tomorrow, okay. My class keeps cutting like windblown leaves, and the dean’s pressure sits on my chest like a boulder.”

“Mm, yeah... it’s already better than last year, like dawn edging the horizon a little sooner.”

“Then, when things settle here, we’ll bring Mom over, like moving an old camphor to a warmer courtyard.”

“Huh?! What about me? I’ll be like a sparrow left shivering under the eaves!”

“You decide that yourself. We’re family, like roots from the same banyan. Dad’s mess cleared like silt sinking in a stream, and no one will mock or blame you.”

Liu RuoYuan lifted the fresh beer and took a sip, like rain wetting a dry field, then said, “Think about it. We can’t leave Mom alone back home, like an oil lamp burning out in an empty room. She’s sturdy now, but one day the wind will rise, and she’s gotten on in years.”

Her tone held no grief, only a cool, practical worry, like frost on glass.

Unlike a certain willful older brother, Liu RuoYuan had always been the steady child, like a straight pine in a storm. Now she naturally shouldered the firstborn’s choices, and Yekase wasn’t surprised, nor did she hold any complaint, like a steady river accepting stones.

She took a quiet sip of cola, and bubbles climbed like little fireflies in a jar.

“I’ll have two transfers landing soon. The two friends we’re meeting at the bar live nearby, like neighbors under the same lantern, and they won’t move far. Old-district secondhand places are cheap, so we can find something around eighty square meters.”

“Eighty? That’s big, like a wide tatami sunlit room.”

“I promised you both, so I’ll do it, like sowing and harvesting by season.”

Twin Towers, as a coastal provincial capital, was a top-tier city where prices bit like winter wind. When Liu RuoYuan first rented, she picked and circled like a swallow searching rafters for days.

Even an old-district secondhand flat could match a hundred square back home, like a mountain measured against a hill. She weighed the price in her mind like coins on a scale, and her mood sank like dusk.

She didn’t need to think to know where Yekase, still a student on paper, could pull that much money, like drawing water from a hidden well.

“That factory...”

“Mm.” The reply fell like a pebble into deep water.

Their eyes met and traded clarity like mirrors facing mirrors.

They let the topic drop by silent consent, like snow melting in shade, and drifted to games and school gossip, chatting like a teacher and a student in a sunlit hallway.

...

...

They ate and talked for about an hour, and bamboo skewers piled up like a small hill on the table.

Then they headed for the bar—Valhalla—its name gleaming like a frozen star.

Yekase found a blind corner of an alley without cameras, like a cat slipping behind crates, and urged Liu RuoYuan to put on a mask. She then looped the block a dozen times in the same patch, like a fox weaving the reeds, before she finally found the bar’s door.

“You were just lost, right?” The tease came light as a feather.

“No. Counter-surveillance, like circling to throw off wolves.” She lied without blinking, her face still as a pond.

She lifted the curtain and stepped into the dim interior, like entering a cave flickering with fireflies.

“Mm. No outsiders. You can take off the mask.” Her voice cut the dark like a lantern.

“Take it off already? It looked pretty cool, like armor under moonlight.”

“I use this kit in the field. If a friend sees you in it, how do I explain? I only lent it because I didn’t have a spare mask today.” Her words lined up like careful stitches.

Reluctant, Liu RuoYuan removed the mask, like shedding a skin, and handed it back to Yekase.

“Doc! You finally made it, so slow, like a snail on wet stone.” Ling Yi popped her head from a booth in the back and waved like a flag.

“Sis Yekase, after making us wait, shouldn’t you buy a round—” Ling Ya’s head followed like a twin sprout.

Then she saw Liu RuoYuan shadowing Yekase’s flank, like a hawk beside a kite.

The instant their gazes met, sparks jumped like flint.

“—?!” Ling Ya snapped her head back down, like a turtle into its shell.

“Oh? I think I just saw someone I know, like a face from yesterday’s rain.” Liu RuoYuan slipped past Yekase, smiling as she strode up, and planted herself by their booth like a temple guardian.

“Te-teacher?! Why are you here?!” Ling Ya blurted, her voice fluttering like startled quail.

“I’m an adult, so a bar is normal, like a city at night. But you two...” Liu RuoYuan looked to Ling Yi. “You’re Ling Yi, Ling Ya’s big sister, right? She’s mentioned you, like a ribbon tied around a name.”

“Y-yeah...” Ling Yi didn’t need to fear Liu RuoYuan in theory, but she worried about complaints to her homeroom teacher, so she looked at Yekase with a pleading stare, like a pup seeking cover.

“Let me introduce. This is Liu RuoYuan, my... uh, older sister, like cedar to bamboo.”

“That’s right! I’m Yekase’s older sister,” Liu RuoYuan said, seizing the advantage like a magpie snatching a coin, and she grinned.

“And these two are Ling Yi and Ling Ya... which you already know. I met them during operations, like comrades crossing the same river.”

During operations— The phrase landed like thunder.

“You—” A question rose, but the answer bloomed like ink in water.

So the two hero friends Yekase called were them, like masks pulled from familiar faces?!

Students she saw at school every day suddenly wore an extra, weighty identity, like silk suddenly revealing hidden armor, and Liu RuoYuan froze.

A beat later, she caught herself, yanked Yekase aside, and hissed under her breath, her voice a blade of cold rain: “They’re still minors! You lured them to be Magical Girls? Do you even know what that means, like sending saplings into a gale?!”

Yekase met her eyes up close, like two wells reflecting the same sky. “They chose to be heroes by their own will, like candles lighting themselves. I didn’t interfere, and I even tried to talk them out of it.”

Liu RuoYuan kept glaring, her pupils dark as storm clouds.

“They’re still students, okay? Spending their youth on your hero dream—what can they possibly learn, like seeds thrown on a road?”

“To tell right from wrong, like finding north by Polaris.”

“...Their codenames?”

“The sister’s Dragon God Shark. The elder’s Flashblade Red.” The names landed like seals in wax.

“...” Liu RuoYuan didn’t know Dragon God Shark’s deeds, but Flashblade Red had hit the news these past two months like a firework streaking nightly. She was the talk of Twin Towers City, a model hero on every tongue like spring tea.

And her true self sat right here, a girl whose cheeks still held the soft roundness of eighteen, like peach fuzz in sunlight.

...

...Something was wrong. Deeply wrong, like a compass spinning.

In that instant, Liu RuoYuan felt anger rise, like heat under ice.

After hearing Yekase’s explanation, she had no reason to stay angry, like rain stopping over a field. They chose their road, and fighting for justice isn’t a sin, especially when Yekase supports and protects them like a shield.

Then, sharp as a heron, she realized her anger wasn’t at Yekase or the girls, but at the world, like a fist aimed at the sky.

At a world that needs heroes, like a city that never stops burning.

At a world that even needs children to be heroes, like a winter demanding flowers bloom.

Their lives should be simple, happy, and safe, like kites over a sunny fair. After classes, they should stroll the streets, sip milk tea in different flavors, gossip about novels, games, and idols, or buy two new dresses and twirl home, like petals in a breeze.

Instead, they wore cold new-model armor and met real blades with real steel on city streets, like thunder against stone. Their minds were filled with ways to defeat enemies, and their mouths and noses breathed steam of sweat and iron, like a forge at midnight.

Liu RuoYuan grew up safe, with a respected father holding the roof like a beam, and a brilliant brother untangling knots like nimble fingers. But when she became a teacher and looked back at the next generation, like a lantern turned to the road behind—

She finally saw how warped this world was, like a mirror bent into a grin.

“...” The silence hung like mist.

“A-Yuan? Sit,” Yekase patted the sofa, her hand tapping like rain on a drum.

“Don’t call me A-Yuan like Dad does. It’s easy to mix me up, like twin shadows.”

“Mix you up? With what?” Ling Yi asked, curiosity peeking like a kitten.

“...Uh, nothing.” The answer dodged away like a fish.

It was too easy to confuse with someone’s name, but Yekase was playing the younger-sister role, and adding an older-brother slot out of nowhere would tangle the threads like a knotted net. Liu RuoYuan forced the topic closed like a book.

She sat where Yekase made space, like a bird finding a branch, and lifted the menu.

“So expensive, like gold flakes in soup...”

“That’s bars for you. If you come to drink, you’ll bleed money like a cut finger.”

“What else do you do at a bar if not drink?” Her brow arched like a bow.

“Talk,” Yekase said, wearing an insider’s look like a well-worn coat. “At the right hours, buy the cheapest beer, and the idle bartender will chat for two hours like a river running.”

“I didn’t know you liked talking so much, like a songbird.”

“Doc’s pretty good at it,” Ling Yi chimed in, her voice warm as tea. “She often says things with... atmosphere, like smoke under lanterns.”

“You’re just terrible at talking,” Ling Ya scolded, her words flicking like chopsticks.

“With atmosphere?” Liu RuoYuan frowned at Yekase, her look saying you don’t even spare a schoolgirl, like words carved in stone.

“What atmosphere? Those were coincidences, like leaves falling where they may. I talk to gather intel, not to flirt for fun. Bartenders in downtown bars chat with all kinds of customers, and info slips out like water through reeds. Their intel and network are terrifyingly broad, like roots under a city.”

“So it’s actually part of hero work?” Liu RuoYuan’s voice cooled like a shaded stream.

“Exactly.” Yekase nodded, crisp as a snap.

“Then when I hesitated, your ‘Do what you think is right’ was a coincidence too?”

“Y-yeah!” Her answer stumbled like a stone on steps.

She lied. Yekase had wanted to say that cool line forever, like an arrow nocked and waiting. But only a support character could say it to a lost main character, and the chance finally bloomed like plum in snow. Though Yekase no longer counted as just support...

...Liu RuoYuan’s stare pricked like needles at her side.

“Ahem, so, the incident at a subsidiary factory under Twin Towers yesterday—you saw the reports, right?” She changed lanes like a boat crossing currents.

Ling Ya nodded. “We saw. That meteor shower that ended the fight—did you call it down, Sis Yekase? You’re a researcher, but when you step in, it’s all magic, like moonlight turning to knives.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Ling Yi folded her arms and pouted, like a cat arching its back. “That big silver robot... its palm got stopped by that spear-wielder, right? The footage was a blur like rain on glass. How’d she do it? I want to spar with her, like steel ringing steel. Fighting grunts all the time is rusting me out, like a blade in a shed.”

“Isn’t it best to only deal with grunts, like sweeping leaves?” Yekase asked, voice soft as ash.

“At this rate we can’t beat the Heavenly Prison King!” Ling Yi’s palm hit the table, and she leaned in, like a tiger crouching before a spring.

...Right, there was that too, like a debt note pinned to the wall.

They had gone to the secret island to train just to clear Mira from their path, like chopping a stubborn root, but it set off a chain reaction, events piling like storm waves and wrecking their rhythm.

Even then—no, even now—setting Mira as a target was too unrealistic, like leaping for the moon from a rooftop.

She could impose her will on Infinite Power itself, like a hand pressing ripples flat, and it was Mind Energy, a popularized, will-based Infinite Power, like wind everyone can breathe.

When power is common, genius thins like gold beaten flat. When it’s of the mind, it slips like smoke through fingers.

Mira had grasped that ineffable knack, like catching a ghost’s breath, and stood out among hundreds of millions of Mind Energy users like a lighthouse among fireflies. Ling Yi wanting to beat her one-on-one was like a fresh cultivator challenging the world’s golden scions, the backbone of the setting, like a sapling daring a lightning-struck cedar.

Possible? Yes, like rain finding a crack. Hard? As hard as climbing to heaven, like fingers on bare rock.

“So before that, we have to change our approach, like tacking into a new wind. Shut-in training won’t cut it, like brewing tea without fire. From now on, Flashblade Red joins every operation, like a star added to the formation.”